First BBQ of the Season

Today consisted of weed pulling, garden planning and plant purchasing. We now have absolutely everything we need to complete our garden this year.

Our lovely vegetables, herbs and flowers are waiting patiently by the back door until the sun decides to grace us with it's presence. 

Despite the awful weather,  it only seemed fitting to finish off the day with a BBQ.

I've been seeing a lot of recipes for BBQ sauce lately - none of which seemed too challenging. Seeing as how we currently don't have BBQ sauce, today was a good day to try it homemade style! I found this recipe after a quick search on the internet:

Homemade BBQ Sauce
Grab yourself a sauce pan and put it on the stove over medium-low heat. You may also put your sauce pan right on your grill over medium-low flame. (I did this on the stove)

Add 1/2 cup of ketchup
Add 2 TB brown sugar
Add 1 TB red or white vinegar (I used white)
Add 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Add 1 TB lemon juice, or 1/2 tsp lemon zest (lemon juice for me)
Add 2 TB/pats of butter (margerine)
Stir all ingredients until melted and blended together to bbq sauce perfection!

So now the sauce was done and I was onto my side dish of potatoes. We had some organic sweet potatoes (which turned out to have a white flesh if you're confused by the picture) as well as just plain russet potatoes. Again, a little search on the internet brought me to this recipe which I followed loosley:

Roasted Potato Medley
Ingredients
1 russet potato, cubed (1 big one)
1 red potato, cubed (none of these on hand)
1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed (3 little ones)
2 tablespoons olive oil (I only used 1tbsp... 2 seemed like a lot)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme (I used rosemary... fresh!)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup low fat, low sodium chicken broth (veggie broth for me)

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
In a mixing bowl, combine the russet potato, red potato, sweet potato, olive oil, vinegar, thyme, garlic and chicken broth. Toss well to coat.
Place into casserole dish and roast uncovered for 40 minutes, or until potatoes are tender.

As the potatoes cooked away in the oven, Jason went to town BBQ'ing his 2 Bison Burgers and my salmon along with 2 cobs of corn. I prepared his buns with some mayo, spinach, red onion and feta. 

REVIEW: I have no reviews from Jason as he's washing his bike but he loved the burger combo. It was very different from the usual ketchup, mustard and relish.

We both really enjoyed the BBQ sauce and it took about 10 minutes from start to finish to whip up a batch. Definitely worth it and will try some other versions in the future.

The potatoes were ok. They were in the oven for about an hour then had to go in the microwave for another 5 minutes! Next time I'll stick with the usual potato wedges with olive oil and herbs.